It appears that the Atlas 5 has made another solid launch, completing payload orbit at 12:56 EDT. That's 30 in a row!

Yes a very reliable vehicle. Now they just need to work on reducing costs so they can compete internationally - that's assuming they actually want to compete.Perhaps they're quite happy with the status quo!

The NASA Advisory Council's Commercial Space Committee recently held a meeting (May 1, 2012) to get updates from various NASA Centers on their commercial space activities. Responses to five key questions were requested:

1. How is the Agency’s commercial space strategy message being perceived at the Center?2. What is the Center doing to promote it?3. What are the Center’s plans for transitioning from the Shuttle and Constellation programs to the new Agency direction that includes commercial space, and how are those plans progressing?4. How is the Center addressing excess capacity issues?5. Do you have any concerns or issues with transitioning to the Agency’s commercial space strategy?

Some of the answers by Greason were pretty interesting. He said that he didn't like the idea of having only one provider or a leader and follower. He didn't think that it respected what the Augustine committee had in my mind when they proposed commercial crew. The fact that the leader follower option is used by the DOD didn't impress him. He said that the DOD's program weren't exactly a model for success. He said that he would prefer to have more than 2 providers in order to have real competition in order to avoid providers taking turns and acting like a bi-poly.

On whether NASA should allow space tourists to fly to the ISS. He said that if they don't, the commercial crew providers could try to sign agreements with other ISS operators (he probably meant Russia).

During the NASA C2+ pre-launch press briefing held today Ms Shotwell stated that with current envisioned funding (specifically mentioned the funding level that Congress is proposing for 2013) the first manned flight of DragonRider would be ~mid 2015. That is if they get the contract for CCiCAP and the follow-on contract as well, a total of 3 years from now.

NASA representative reiterated their NET 2017 expected date. I believe the 2017 date is NASA being conservative about it over the fact that SpaceX may not be on NASA contract and that other providers have more technical hurdles to accomplish to get to a manned launch. Also slips happen for various reasons and even SpaceX’s date of mid 2015 is seen as optimistic.

The question is has SpaceX improved their capability to predict the schedule or are they still (all evidence currently points at them being very optimistic) picking the earliest possible and not the earliest probable? And has NASA access to the full range of SpaceX prediction data that they then use to derive a conservative date?

During the NASA C2+ pre-launch press briefing held today Ms Shotwell stated that with current envisioned funding (specifically mentioned the funding level that Congress is proposing for 2013) the first manned flight of DragonRider would be ~mid 2015. That is if they get the contract for CCiCAP and the follow-on contract as well, a total of 3 years from now.

NASA representative reiterated their NET 2017 expected date. I believe the 2017 date is NASA being conservative about it over the fact that SpaceX may not be on NASA contract and that other providers have more technical hurdles to accomplish to get to a manned launch. Also slips happen for various reasons and even SpaceX’s date of mid 2015 is seen as optimistic.

The question is has SpaceX improved their capability to predict the schedule or are they still (all evidence currently points at them being very optimistic) picking the earliest possible and not the earliest probable? And has NASA access to the full range of SpaceX prediction data that they then use to derive a conservative date?

An interesting comment Gwynne made was 2015 is not the most optimistic date, can be achieved even if failures happen along the way.Quote from Gwynne: "It's a though business".

Once the milestone schedule is released for the winning CCiCAP contractors then, if SpaceX is one of them, the realisticness of 2015 for manned flight will be revealed. Unfortunately we'll have to wait until August to find out.

Not sure if this is the best place to ask, but is there anything legally preventing Lockheed from submitting it's own CCP proposal?

Other than the fact that the deadline past, nothing. it is likely they are involved in some of the submitted proposals if not all by themselves.

Lockheed Martin is heavily involved in the ATK/Astrium Liberty proposal. The Liberty spacecraft appears, essentially, to be "Orion Lite", outfitted by Lockheed Martin, with final assembly at KSC alongside Orion.